


The Art of Forgetting

by dashakay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 14:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5131091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the harsh light of the bathroom, she stares at her face in the mirror, counting new lines and wrinkles. When she was younger, it never occurred to her that someday she’d be fifty years old, gray stubbornly creeping through the red despite her stylist’s best efforts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline is post-IWTB, pre-revival. 
> 
> All my thanks to scienceandmysticism for prompting me.

“Another day, another dollar,” Scully mumbles as she climbs out of bed to the shrieking accompaniment of her alarm.

At this time of year, it’s still dark when the alarm goes off. It’s dark in her apartment as she showers, makes coffee, dresses, and puts on her makeup. Dark and quiet, as if all of Washington D.C. is asleep except for her.

She has to fight the urge to climb back into bed, to throw the duvet over her head and doze until the sun finally sneaks through the bedroom windows. It would be so easy to ignore her duties and responsibilities and sleep through it all.

In the harsh light of the bathroom, she stares at her face in the mirror, counting new lines and wrinkles. When she was younger, it never occurred to her that someday she’d be fifty years old, gray stubbornly creeping through the red despite her stylist’s best efforts. Even five years ago, she never could have imagined it would come to this—a small one-bedroom rental with a queen-sized bed where she always, always sleeps alone.

“Today is a day just like any day,” she whispers to her reflection. Her reflection merely glares at her in return.

Everything is simpler at work. She can let herself be sucked into the swirling eddies of crisis and drama that are daily life in a busy hospital. It’s easy to forget everything when there are patients to see, surgeries to perform, parents to calm. When she has a spare moment, she sequesters herself in her closet-like office with a cup of tea and stacks of medical journals. She never needs to think, really think, when she’s at work. Everyone regards her as calm, cool, professional and competent Dr. Scully. Not the warmest doctor, she imagines they think, but she gets the job done and does it well.

Today she feels restless, wishes she could go for a walk, but outside it’s cold and drizzly, the sky resembling a solid sheet of lead. Instead, she walks the halls of the hospital, through the organized mayhem of pediatrics, the hushed sorrow of oncology, the crowded and fearful waiting area outside the ER.

She ends her walk, as she frequently does, in Labor and Delivery, where the pain and joy of new life comingle. Sometimes she thinks of this as her version of penance for her sins. Glimpsing a newborn swaddled in its bassinet, or held tightly in its nervous mother’s arms, is her personal crown of thorns.

She’s relieved when her pager goes off, summoning her to another crisis.

On the way home, her phone rings. It’s her mother, worried but obviously trying to hide it. “Are you sure you won’t come over for dinner tonight, darling?” she asks.

Scully shakes her head, even though she knows her mother can’t see it. “I’ll see you on Sunday, Mom,” she says gently, but firmly. She doesn’t think she could stand her mother’s pity tonight. It will be better on the weekend when she has had the chance to fortify her armor against her mother’s well-meaning concern.

Instead, she drives to the gym and runs on the treadmill, runs as fast as her fifty year-old body will let her. With terrible Euro techno music blasting in her years, she pushes herself to run harder, watching the miles run and the calories burned on the monitor. After she’s run seven miles, she concedes defeat, letting her sprint slow to a walk. She wipes the sweat from her brow, feeling somehow cleansed.

Back at her apartment, she opens the door and smells dust and stale coffee. She doesn’t bother switching on the living room lamps. There’s not much to see, just an anonymous couch, matching armchair and a whole lot of boxes that she hasn’t had the energy to unpack yet. She needs things to hang on the wall, bookshelves, a coffee table, but they seem too complicated to acquire.

After her shower, she pads into the kitchen, wearing her flannel bathrobe and a towel turban. She rummages in the fridge for something for dinner, but there’s little in there except a couple of bottles of wine, various condiments, some yogurt past its sell-by date, and milk for coffee. Finally, she unearths a block of cheddar that seems safe to eat and finds crackers in the cupboard. Practically a feast, she thinks, cutting the cheese into thick slices.

Scully opens a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and pours herself a toast. “Cheers,” she says to the empty kitchen and takes a long sip of the cool, crisp wine.

She tries not to think of this time last year, how they went to New York and saw a Broadway play, visited the Museum of Natural History, made love on scratchy hotel sheets, and drank mimosas and ate croissants in bed the next morning. It feels like a decade ago, not just a year.

If she drinks another couple of glasses of wine, she might be able to forget that weekend, maybe the last time things were truly good between them.

As if on cue, her phone begins to buzz like an angry wasp on the kitchen counter. She picks it up and sure enough, the display reads MULDER.

She holds the vibrating phone in her hand, part of her brain begging her to answer, the other part sternly telling her no. With a sigh, she sets the phone back down on the counter. After a minute, the new voicemail light flashes but she doesn’t bother to check it.

It’s time, she thinks. It’s finally time to move on.

She pours her second glass of wine and sits at the kitchen table. Her new life will begin tomorrow, she resolves. Tomorrow everything will be better. She just has to get through this night.

Scully lifts her glass in another toast. “Happy birthday,” she says to herself and drains her glass in several huge gulps.

There, that’s better. She’s already starting to forget. 


End file.
